Kota Wächter - Gabon

Bones - Skull Guardian Figure of the Kota from Gabon

In the past, the deceased were laid out in the forest, later buried in the earth. The skulls of prominent clan founders and chiefs were exhumed again after some time and, in a kind of 'secondary burial', placed with other memory pieces into large baskets. These baskets were sealed and kept in their own huts, 'sacred shrines'. If the village was relocated, the baskets with the ancestors' bones accompanied it, and in the new village a new, dedicated 'shrine' was erected for them.